Then there are the fastidious cats who try hard NOT to leave undesirable "gifts". We had one such. He was very proper about doing his "business" outside and ONLY outside. Very proper.

One time we went on a trip for a week, thinking he WAS outside when we left, but it turned out that he wasn't! There was plenty of food and water put out for him in bowls on the back porch...but this did him no good, since he was inside the house, and growing more desperate day by day.

Fortunately, he had the toilet to drink out of. He managed to find dry cat food in the kitchen cupboard. But there was the little problem of where to go to relieve himself.

That cat must have gone through hell trying to figure it out, but eventually he came up with a solution. There was a knothole in the floor in one of the second floor bedrooms, so he did everything through that somehow.

The knothole was located directly above our kitchen stove, with no ceiling material in between (it was an old farmhouse).

By the time we got home the stove was an incredible mess...and the cat was ready for a feline psychiatrist!

The poor fellow did his best, under the circumstances.

- LH